Author Archives → Brian

prayers for the dead

this was rory young

 

Rory James Andrew Young

21 May 1972 Lusaka, Zambia
26 April 2021 Fada N’gourma, Burkina Faso

 

🐆

 

As good a man

as I have ever known or am likely to

is being laid to rest by his close family and friends

today in the Netherlands. Please send 

them all a tray of light.

 

🐘

 

Prayers for the dead

are on the same footing as gifts for the living.

The angel goes in to the dead with a tray of light, bearing a cloth of light,

and says, ‘This is a gift for you from your brother so-and-so,

from your relative so-and-so.” And he delights in

it just as a living man rejoices

in a gift.

 

Ibn al -Ghazali

 

🕊

 

please donate to the Rory Young Family Memorial Fund

 

please donate to the family of rory young


 

My friend and hero

Rory Young was killed on 26 April 2021

in an ambush while leading a wildlife protection

patrol in Arly National Park, Burkina Faso.

Rory was a wildlife expert,

professional guide — 

 

 

— and for many years

an anti-poaching ranger training

other rangers and leading

patrols across Africa.

 

 

A man of colossal ability,

wit, integrity, and drive, Rory Young

risked his life daily in defending the creatures he

revered. In the years since terrorists have turned  to

poaching as a source of operating revenue, he engaged

in regular gun battles with armed poachers

and was a target of multiple attacks

and ambushes.

 

 

His selfless work,

done over decades, could not

have been more dangerous,

nor more heart-rending.

 

 

Rory leaves at home a wife and

two children whom he

loved mightily.

 

 

Please make a donation to the

Rory Young Family Memorial Fund and if possible to

Chengeta Wildlife, which Rory co-founded

and led as CEO.

 

Rest in peace, lion.

🕊